Beefed-up security greets rally-goers.

Beefy, black-clad securityofficers — donning bulletproof vests and perched on a scaffolding— peered across Civic Center park through military-style binoculars Saturday as crowds began to grow for the first dayofDenver’s 4/20 rally.

Teams of security officers performed “soft” body patdowns and backpack searches before allowing people through any of the several entry gates. An officer only halfjokingly said he was checking for guns, knives and high explosives.

The watch tower and patdowns are just a fewof the enhanced security measures for this year’s 4/20 event that were noticeably absent fromthe 2013 gathering, marred by the shooting of two people in the leg, as well as a stampede toward the stage. Also, a third person was grazed by a bullet in the shooting.

“It’s presidential-style security,” chief organizer Miguel Lopez boasted about this weekend.

He was more sheepish when he spoke of last year’s security breaches, when a crowd tumbled through a barricade and trampled one anotherwhile ascending the stage.

This year, Lopez hired three security companies to patrol the two-day event. Glendale Mayor Mike Dunafon, who is running for governor as an independent, also hired a captain and a lieutenant from his department to help. He paid for it himself. Oneof the security teams had 40 security guards carrying guns and handcuffs.

“We’re armed and everything,” said Jesse Peña, owner of Special Agent Security Service. “Ifwe see a crime happen, we do an arrest and then just get a police officer.”

Police issued citations to a couple of the private security guards for lacking the appropriate license, said Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson.

Part of the reason for enhanced security are projections that because of legal marijuana, the crowds of people from across the country are likely to at least double last year’s numbers. Lopezwas expecting 80,000 visitors Sunday.

The Denver Police Department — which said it had cited or arrested 25 people, 17 for public marijuana smoking, on Saturday— invited state and federal lawenforcement officers to tour its command center at police headquarters a block away. The communications center has about 50 TV screens that can flip back and forth to 138 HALO and 38 traffic cameras.

Pat Phelan, commander of the department’s special-operations unit, said the cameras will ensure rapid deployment of a beefed-up downtown police presence Satur- day and Sunday.

“We don’t expect to see a problem, butwe’re prepared if there is,” Cmdr. Matt Murray said Saturday.

Avid marijuana inhaler GuyOrvis, 62, of Denver, who rode to the festival in awheelchair rigged out like a lounge chair, said the extra security makes a lot of sense.

“It puts everybody on notice to keep it on the down low. I’m not about violenceor anything,” he said.

He denied that the smoke — with a particular scent — pumping out of a cannister at the back of his wheelchair was cannabisinfused. But a small crowd of people followed him around the park sniffing deeply and giggling.